Trump/Pence: Merchant Of Fear

Here we go again. NPR reports

President Trump, in another broadside against the news media, on Monday accused "the dishonest press" of failing to report terrorist attacks.

Speaking to troops at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, Trump cited a series of recent attacks and then added, "It's gotten to a point where it's not even reported, and in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn't even want to report it."

Trump told the troops that the media "have their reasons, and you understand that."








The White House later released a list of 78 attacks, including those in Paris, Brussels, Nice, Istanbul, San Bernardino, and 73 others, all of which it claimed were largely ignored. Politico reports

Others don't meet customary definitions of terrorism. An instance in Algeria in September 2014 would seem to refer to the beheading of a French tourist, Herve Gourdel, who had been held hostage — a gruesome murder but not something that would traditionally fit the definition of terrorism.

Oddly, the list includes no attacks in Israel, despite a spate of knife attacks in 2015-16 that were meant to terrorize the population. It also doesn’t include the mass shooting of African American churchgoers by Dylann Roof, an avowed white supremacist, at a Charleston church in June 2015, or a mass shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic in November 2015.

At the time of the latter crime, The New York Times reported

A number of people who knew Mr. Dear said he was a staunch abortion opponent. Ms. Micheau, 60, said in a brief interview Tuesday that late in her marriage to Mr. Dear, he told her that he had put glue in the locks of a Planned Parenthood location in Charleston.

“He was very proud of himself that he’d gone over and jammed up their locks with glue so that they couldn’t get in,” she said.

But another ex-wife, Pamela Ross, said that he did not obsess on the subject of abortion. After his arrest, Mr. Dear said “no more baby parts” to investigators, a law enforcement official said.

The White House saw fit also to ignore the gunning down of six men on January 29 at a Quebec City mosque by an admirer of Donald Trump in what Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau termed "a terrorist attack on Muslims."

That might have been excluded because of a December, 2016 cut-off date- or perhaps there was a 12/16 cut-off date because of this incident.

Or maybe the primary motivation is neither right-wing nor religious bias, but something even worse. The Washington Post's Morning Mix reveals 

What the data show, according to the Global Terrorism Database reported by Voice of America, is that a vast majority of terrorist attacks — about 98 percent between 2001 and 2015 — occurred outside the U.S. and Western Europe, even if the White House’s list and rhetoric may suggest otherwise.

A Washington Post analysis of all terrorist attacks from the beginning of 2015 through the summer of 2016 found that the Middle East, Africa and Asia have seen “nearly 50 times more deaths from terrorism than Europe and the Americas.”

But emphasizing attacks in the Third World wouldn't scare people.  As the USA came out of the Great Recession, private sector employment and even manufacturing employment increased, and crime has declined dramatically in the last two decades. Still, when he delivered his inaugural address, the President spoke of "rusted out factories," tombstones, "and the crime and the gangs and the drugs," concluding "the American carnage stops right here and stops right now."

William Saletan found that Vice President Pence, defending the President's refugee order, used the phrase "safety and security"

10 times to defend the ban, ignoring reminders that none of the terrorists who struck America on or after 9/11 came from the banned countries. The point of repeating the mantra, rather than addressing such facts, is to elevate fear and bury other considerations.

The dominant aim of this Administration is to instill fear, whether in ethnic minorities, the courts, the press, leftist advocates, whomever or whatever serves the purpose of the strongman. This comes not from principled commitment or whim, and what results a few years down the road should come as a shock, but not as a surprise.








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He Still Hates America, And We Already Knew That

Who are the Russians fooling? The Moscow Times (which otherwise does not appear to be the Russian version of The Onion) reports

The Kremlin has demanded an apology from Fox News host Bill O’Reilly for calling President Vladimir Putin “a killer.”

Presidential Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the outburst “unacceptable and offensive.”

O’Reilly made the claim during an interview with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Of course he did, because it's obvious, and O'Reilly could respond only "but he's a killer, though. Putin's a killer" after Trump maintained "I say it’s better to get along with Russia than not. And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world — that’s a good thing. Will I get along with him? I have no idea."

The chat proceeded with

Trump: There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think — our country’s so innocent. You think our country’s so innocent?

O’Reilly: I don’t know of any government leaders that are killers.

Trump: Well — take a look at what we’ve done too. We made a lot of mistakes. I’ve been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.

O’Reilly: But mistakes are different than —

Trump: A lot of mistakes, but a lot of people were killed. A lot of killers around, believe me.

Trump was not "against the war in Iraq from the beginning" but that is, as the grammatically misguided put it, " past history."

More significant is the moral equivalence Trump is trying to establish between the violent authoritarian regime of Vladimir Putin and the United States of America. "Take off that flag lapel pin, you're soiling it," David Frum aptly tweets.

When you spend 4-5 years in the Hanoi Hilton, wearing an American flag lapel pin is unnecessary, as John McCain conspicously- no, inconspicously- demonstrated in the 2008 presidential election campaign. Perhaps Trump should wear half a dozen.

But O'Reilly- he of "the spin stops here"- did not challenge Trump other than pointing out the obvious, which upset the sensitive soul of  Vladimir Putin.

But perhaps not of President Trump. "We've got a lot of killers," Trump alleged, and continued "what do you think- our country's so innocent. You think our country's so innocent?"

But Trump is saying only that the USA is not innocent- that it is guilty of something or other. He is not asserting that he disapproves.  Digby points us to an excerpt from an interview held with the candidate last March when Trump remarked

Look at what China’s doing in the South China Sea. I mean they are totally disregarding our country and yet we have made China a rich country because of our bad trade deals. Our trade deals are so bad. And we have made them – we have rebuilt China and yet they will go in the South China Sea and build a military fortress the likes of which perhaps the world has not seen. Amazing, actually. They do that, and they do that at will because they have no respect for our president and they have no respect for our country.

Recognizing this as old style, chauvinistic nationalism, Digby responds "So he's going to make them 'respect' us. And then, he'll take what he wants. To the victor belongs the spoils."  There is no reason to believe Donald Trump is offended by leaders who are killers, or by colonial powers, or by national leaders who exploit other nations for economic gain.

"If we kept the oil," President Trump recently contended, "you probably wouldn’t have ISIS because that’s where they made their money in the first place. So we should have kept the oil, but, OK, maybe we’ll have another chance.”  Now he says "a lot of people were killed. A lot of killers around, believe me." It is not at all clear Mr. Trump disapproves, and no clearer after the "interview" conducted by Bill O'Reilly.













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Partners With Trump

"It’s official," writes Mike Huckabee on his Facebook page

one of the top sheiks of the United Arab Emirates is more rational, objective about US immigration policy and less susceptible to groundlessly accusing President Trump of a “Muslim ban” than the Democratic Party and the federal judge they shopped for.

The former governor links to an article in the Conservative Tribune, in which we read

The United Arab Emirates, one of the most influential Arab states, has come out in support of President Donald Trump’s temporary ban on immigration from seven nations with terrorism problems.

Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the foreign minister of the UAE, called Trump’s executive order a “sovereign decision,” and said he was convinced the move was not “directed against a particular religion,” Sky News reported.

“This is a temporary ban and it will be revised in three months, so it is important that we put into consideration this point,” he said Wednesday during a news conference in Abu Dhabi.

He also voiced some tentative support for President Trump’s decision to establish “safe zones” in war-torn Syria.

“If the aim behind these areas is humanitarian and temporary and under an international umbrella, I think this is a basis we can work on,” the sheikh said.

“But I think that it is still early to decide what our final stance toward these zones is before we hear from the new U.S. administration the ideas and develop that further.”

The writer believes "The United Arab Emirates is one of America’s top partners in the Middle East, and positioning itself in favor of the temporary freeze on immigration could be a preemptive way of negotiating with the Trump administration."

Or it could be a way of aligning itself with the business interests of Donald Trump. TIME explains

Trump has a tangle of business interests in the UAE. His first venture in the country was a branding deal in 2005 to build a hotel with Nakheel, a developer backed by Dubai’s royal family. The project was canceled in 2008 following a corruption and bribery probe into two Nakheel executives. In 2013, Trump struck a branding deal with Damac Properties Dubai Co., to build luxury villas and a golf course. Damac is also building another Trump-branded course designed by Tiger Woods. In December 2015, local groups called for a boycott of those properties in response to Trump’s proposed Muslim ban. (Damac briefly removed Trump’s image and name from its properties, but reinstated them two days later.) The Trump International Golf Club in Dubai is set to open early this year. On New Year’s Eve, during a celebration at his Florida estate Mar-a-Lago, Trump gave a speech to hundreds of paying guests that praised Damac executive Hussain Sajwani and his family. “The most beautiful people from Dubai are here tonight,” Trump gushed. 

There is an old (not very funny) joke in real estate, Donald Trump's business. "What are the three determinants of land value?" it roghly goes. The answer:  "location, location, location." Trump's business is, was, and will remain real estate. And the three most important factors in his decision-making as President of the United States are personal:  profit, profit, and profit.








                                                                                                                                                 




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'Populist' Is Just An Eight-Letter Word

"For the past two years," Charlie Pierce wrote this past week

we heard endless thumbsucking from the Brokaws of the world that Donald Trump was a different kind of Republican, that he was running a "populist" campaign, that he would "upend Republican orthodoxy." Because he couched it in barely veiled racism and xenophobia, enough of the suckers bought it to tip the election in his favor.

It went beyond the election, obviously.  Following President Trump's inaugural address,  Jake Tapper remarked "It was very consistent to the Trump brand, absolutely. I have to say, I think it’s fair to say this is one of the most radical inaugural speeches we’ve ever heard. It was purely populist. "  David Axelrod said "But look, this was a full-throated, as has been said, populist manifesto." Charles Krauthammer gushed" Well, I agree with the conclusion that this was probably the most classically populist speech we’ve ever heard from a president," one to be "remembered as the forgotten-man speech."

The print media was not immune from such breathlessness, with The Week maintaining "Trump struck a populist tone reminiscent of the themes of his campaign. 'This moment is your moment. It belongs to you,' he said. 'Jan. 20, 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.'"

It will be remembered for something, but less likely as the revival of populism than for its deceptive, barnyard smell.  After meeting on Tuesday with pharmaceutical company executives, this "populist" abandoned his support for allowing Medicare to negotiate bulk drug prices with the industry, instead promising

I'll oppose anything that makes it harder for smaller, younger companies to take the risk of bringing their product to a vibrantly competitive market. That includes price-fixing by the biggest dog in the market, Medicare, which is what's happening. But we can increase competition and bidding wars, big time.

So what I want, we have to get lower prices, we have to get even better innovation and I want you to move your companies back into the United States. And I want you to manufacture in the United States. We're going to be lowering taxes, we're going to be getting rid of regulations that are unnecessary.

The pharmaceutical companies are not the sole beneficiary of such largesse, for

With a swipe of his pen, U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday started killing off a retirement advice rule that wealth managers from Wall Street to Wisconsin have spent the last six years lobbying against.

A landmark policy from the Obama era, the so-called fiduciary rule requires brokers and financial advisers to act in the best interest of retirement savers. This restricts their ability to earn commissions and to sell some higher-fee products.

Wall Street has argued it would harm consumers because it would raise compliance costs and therefore fees, and force them to get rid of Main Street clients and small businesses that offer 401(k) plans.

Trump’s executive order asks the Labor Department to review whether the rule needs to be changed or dumped

Those "forgotten men" whom Krauthammer discovered at age 66, as Pierce explains

will now be free to have their pensions swindled out from underneath them by sharpies whose bonuses depend on how much money they can steal. They will find themselves paying usurious interest rates on their credit cards because of a clause written in Swedish, in .00009 point type, on the back of their monthly statement. And then, when it all comes crashing down again, they'll have to look for somebody to blame, and it won't be them, and it won't be the charlatan they elevated to the White House. And someone else will run for president, and give them the proper scapegoat...






 It remains, nonetheless, undetermined how this will play in Peoria, short-term or long-term. But the outline of the Grump Administration remains clear. If Donald Trump is a populist, he also is an underweight, humble, self-identified celibate.







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The Minister Of Propaganda Strikes Again

Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway told Chris Matthews Thursday evening

I bet there was very little coverage. I bet it's brand new information to people that President Obama has a six month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country were radicalized and they were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre. Most people didn't know that because it didn't get covered.

There is a good reason the "Bowling Green massacre" wasn't covered.  There was no massacre and it didn't happen in Bowling Green.  By now you all know that the FBI learned an Iraqi refugee and member of Al Qaeda was living in Bowling Green, Kentucky and

an undercover agent fooled him into thinking he was helping Al Qaeda in Iraq by sending rocket-propelled grenade launchers, machine guns, sniper rifles and more.

Alwan enlisted the help of Hammadi, who was also living in Bowling Green, according to documents.

Once authorities were confident the pair was not part of a larger terrorist cell, they arrested Hammadi and Alwan. The former was sentenced to life in prison, the latter to 40 years behind bars.





Contrary to Conway's claim, if there had been a massacre masterminded by Iraqi nationals living in the USA, it would have been covered. However, if  the perpetrator were someone evidently not Arab or Muslim, someone named, for example, "Alexandre," it might not have been major news in the USA. In such an attack largely ignored here in the states

The 27-year-old suspect in a terrorist attack against Muslims at Quebec City during evening prayers was charged on Monday with six counts of first degree murder and five counts of attempted murder.

The massacre on Sunday evening, which Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau condemned as a "cowardly terrorist attack on Muslims", left five others in critical condition.

A further 12 worshippers managed to escape the chaos with minor injuries.

Police initially arrested two men but later said just one, Alexandre Bissonnette, remained a suspect.

Given even less attention than this real massacre- in contrast to the fake massacres brought to us by Propaganda Minister Conway- is that

Bissonnette is a French-Canadian student,  according to local news website TVA, which cited police sources. A Facebook page reportedly belonging to Bissonnette included "likes" for Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen, the far-right French presidential candidate. 

And if  it is up to the Grump Administration, murders by individuals with names dissimilar to Shareef or Waad will continue to get little attention. Reuters reports

The Trump administration wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism, five people briefed on the matter told Reuters.

The program, "Countering Violent Extremism," or CVE, would be changed to "Countering Islamic Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism," the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States.

Such a change would reflect Trump's election campaign rhetoric and criticism of former President Barack Obama for being weak in the fight against Islamic State and for refusing to use the phrase "radical Islam" in describing it. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for attacks on civilians in several countries.

Chelsea Clinton responded to Conway by tweeting "very grateful no one seriously hurt in the Louvre attack ...or the (completely fake) Bowling Green Massacre. Please don't make up attacks." That's wishful thinking, though.

"We live in a post-fact world," Steve M. recognizes, in which the GOP base believes the Bowling Green Massacre "could have been true, so it is true." (his emphasis). Conflating Trump's refugee ban with President Obama's travel slowdown, she frightens the base further about Islamic terrorism, ratcheting up hatred of Muslims and laying the  groundwork for more punitive action.  Making this sort of thing up, Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway realizes, is a win-win for Donald Trump.







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Donna Brazile Can't Leave Soon Enough

The Democratic National Committee, under the leadership of interim chairperson Donna Brazile, has pared down the list of candidates for the next chairperson of the Party.  And as befits Brazile, it did so clumsily, as

The Democratic National Committee is kicking a candidate out of the chairmanship race after he told The Hill that Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) should not be the party’s next leader because he is a Muslim.

In a Jan. 5 email to The Hill, Vincent Tolliver, a former House candidate in Arkansas, said that Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, should not be chairman because of Islamic positions on homosexuality.

“His being a Muslim is precisely why DNC voters should not vote for him,” Tolliver wrote. “Muslims discriminate against gays. Islamic law is clear on the subject, and being gay is a direct violation of it. In some Muslim countries, being gay is a crime punishable by death.”

“Clearly, Mr. Ellison is not the person to lead the DNC or any other organization committed to not discriminating based on gender identity or sexual orientation,” Tolliver continued. “I'm shocked [the Human Rights Campaign] has been silent on the issue. A vote for Representative Ellison by any member of the DNC would be divisive and unconscionable, not to mention counterproductive to the immediate and necessary steps of rebuilding the Democratic Party."

The action came on the heels of Tolliver on Saturday having

 participated in the DNC-sanctioned candidates forum in Houston.

The DNC announced on Tuesday that Tolliver would also be one of 11 candidates participating in the next forum in Detroit on Feb. 4.

But Tolliver is no longer invited to participate in the event.

"The Democratic Party welcomes all Americans from all backgrounds. What we do not welcome is people discriminating against others based on who they are or how they worship," interim Chairwoman Donna Brazile said in a statement to The Hill.

Point of order, Madame Chairwoman: Mr. Ellison (as far as we, or Brazile, know) has discriminated against no one.  He has expressed a noxious viewpoint. In the world of public employment (which this is not) or in the city square, this would be termed "viewpoint discrimination."

Brazile proceeds to claim

we ask all our Chair candidates to pledge ‘to uphold the interests, welfare and success of the Democratic Party of the United States,’ and to participate in the process ‘in good faith.’ Mr. Tolliver’s disgusting comments attacking the religion of a fellow candidate fall far short of that standard. Accordingly, Mr. Tolliver is no longer a candidate for DNC Chair."

The gentle chairlady has not explained what part of “Muslims discriminate against gays. Islamic law is clear on the subject, and being gay is a direct violation of it. In some Muslim countries, being gay is a crime punishable by death" is inaccurate.

(I pause briefly to note this has nothing to do with Trump's refugee action. Four of the nations on his list punish homosexuality by death; three on his list do not; four which have the death penalty for homosexuality are not on his list.)

Ellison's spokesman himself pointed out "Keith has shown first-hand his commitment to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, organizing tirelessly against the Minnesota anti-marriage equality amendment in 2012...." Being a thinking man, Ellison does not allow his religion of choice to dictate his views on all political or social issues, which the DNC (or candidates for its chairmanship) might have emphasized had it not shut Tolliver down. That, in turn, would have provided a neat contrast to many of the evangelical followers of the GOP,  for whom "abortion is murder" is second only to "I am the Lord thy God." Theocracies may be dangerous to children and other living things.







Of course Brazile, who unethically tilted the presidential nominating process toward Hillary Clinton, may have her own motives. Tolliver might have picked up one, maybe two, votes while the primary impact of his statement (had he been allowed to remain in the race) would have been to provoke a backlash in favor of Ellison. His election would not amuse such neo-liberal stalwarts as Barack Obama and Joe Biden. That sound you hear is of the popping of the cork in Tom Perez's champagne bottle.

We can as Democrats shut up our opponents by suppressing their speech, as the destructive Brazile prefers.  However, anarchists in Berkeley, California and- far more ominously- Trump, Bannon, Conway et al. already are going down that road, and it is not a pretty sight.

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Profiles In Submission

Well, they are idiots," Senator Orrin Hatch remarked of Democrats boycotting the Senate Finance Committee vote on Treasury nominee Steve Lyin' Mnuchin.  He continued "Anybody that would do something like that. It’s a complete breach of decorum. It’s a complete breach of committee rules. It’s a complete breach of just getting along around here.”

It was only ten months ago that the Utah Republican enthusiastically endorsed the decision of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to oppose Senate consideration of the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court. He has now gotten religion about such matters as committee rules and getting along.

Responding on Tuesday, Jason Easley recognized "Republicans are demonstrating that they can dish it out, but they can’t take it."

That was even before Republicans later that day fell all over themselves praising President Trump's nomination of Neil Gorsuch for the U.S. Supreme Court. And it was without consideration of the Administration's suspension or ban on refugees from seven Muslim-majority nations.

Tuesday brought the news (first reported by Politico) that

While President Trump's controversial executive order on immigration caught much of official Washington off guard, congressional staffers secretly worked on the measure without the knowledge of many lawmakers, sources told ABC News.

Sources briefed on the process said that House Judiciary Committee staffers worked on the immigration order after the election as part of their work with the Trump transition team.

At least one committee staffer signed a nondisclosure agreement regarding the work, a source familiar with the matter told ABC News.

While it's common for congressional staffers to volunteer with presidential transition teams, the signing of nondisclosure agreements is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, congressional sources said.

House Judiciary Committee chairperson Bob Goodlatte declared "I proudly allowed them to provide their expertise to the Trump transition team on immigration law,”  Goodlatte, however, addressed the involvement only of one congressional staffer and made no reference to the non-disclosure agreement.

The mind reels (or should). The Trump Administration may have wanted to a) keep details of the agreement, or how it was formulated, from members of the Congress or the public; b) get a little free labor, not on the White House's dime; c) assert control over Congress and to make it clear that it alone is in charge, no complaints accepted; d) send a subtle message to members of Congress that it knows where the bodies are buried, that Representative or Senator X was where he shouldn't have been one weekend while his family was back home in Mobile, North Platte, or Pocatello.

We don't know because, well, it's confidential.. However,  someone has ahem, male sexual apparatus. Appearing on CNN's "New Day" the following morning, Joe Manchin acknowledged that details thus far and elusive, and asserted

if these staffers did not sign a non-disclosure, please tell me. If they did that I would think that the member- or the committee that that they work for- should fire them. They should go on the payroll of the White House.

Good idea that, but not going to happen.  The West Virginia Senator understands also

and on top of that, sign a non-disclosure to which they can't even tell the people they work for? Let me just tell you, if I had a staffer that was doing something for somebody else and signing a non-disclosure they would not be on my payroll as of that minute I found out.







Even though we cannot be certain how Manchin would have responded were it one of his staff members, his clear statement does add a little pressure on the GOP members of Congress to whom this Trump power grab pertains. (With the DeVos and Gorsuch nominations coming up, I reserve the right to modify my opinion of the Senator.)

If these Republicans roll over and play dead, we'll know that Orrin Hatch's words are sound and fury signifying a Party with no courage to challenge a demagogue.








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